Money advice for tenants

How will my benefit be paid?

With Local Housing Allowance you will usually have your benefit paid directly to you. You cannot choose to have your benefit paid direct to your landlord.

If you do not use your benefit to pay your rent

As a tenant you are responsible for paying your rent to your landlord. This is the same as for tenants who do not get benefit. If you do not pay your rent your landlord may apply to us to have your benefit paid to them. Or they may take other action to recover their money, including evicting your from your home.

Eviction means that:

• you will lose your home
• your benefit may not be paid to you in the future
• you may have difficulty finding new accommodation, as your landlord is unlikely to give you a reference
• you will still have to pay the landlord the money you owe and possibly extra money to cover any court costs
• an application for re-housing could be affected as you may be considered to have made yourself intentionally homeless.

Ways you can pay your rent?

The easiest way to pay your rent is if you have your benefit paid into a bank or building society account. That way you can arrange to pay the rent to your landlord automatically. This is called a standing order. As long as you have enough money in your account, you won’t have to worry about remembering to pay your rent and your landlord will know the rent will be paid automatically.

If you do not already have a bank or building society account, you may want to set one up.

Opening a bank/building society account

If you don’t have a bank or building society account, now may be a good time to think about opening one. You should be able to open an account either at a bank or building society.

You can get advice about opening and running an account from any bank or building society. And there are many organisations that can give you advice about money, including if you have already tried to open an account and have not been able to. Please see below details of some useful contacts.

Help with managing your money and debt

If you are concerned about managing your money or you have debts, try not to worry, but do not ignore your problem. If you cannot pay your rent because of money problems you may be evicted from your home. You must ask for help. There are many organisations that can give you advice about debt and money problems. They are listed below.

If you are struggling to live on the money you have or are experiencing problems with debt, you may want to think about whether you are getting all the benefits or tax credits that you are entitled to.

For more information and advice you can visit the central government money advice section on the internet at DirectGov. This also has a wide range of public service information and links to other organisations which you may find useful if you are looking for help or advice.

Advice UK

Age Concern

British Bankers’ Association (BBA)

Citizens Advice Bureau

Consumer Credit Counselling Service

Credit Action

Financial Services Authority (FSA)

National Debtline

Payplan